Andersonville Raiders
Encyclopedia
The Andersonville Raiders were a band of rogue soldiers held prisoner at the Confederate Andersonville Prison during the American Civil War
. Led by their chieftains Charles Curtis, John Sarsfield, Patrick Delaney, Teri Sullivan (or WR Rickson according to other sources), William Collins, and A. Munn, these soldiers terrorized their fellow prisoners, robbing
and sometimes even murder
ing them.
An internal police force of other soldiers, called the "regulators," eventually formed to counter the raiders and brought them to trial. On July 11, 1864, six of the leading raiders were hanged
, ending their control of the prison.
When the captives had the chance to eat, they would suffer from diseases caused by contaminated food and water. Dysentery
, scurvy
, and gangrene
ran wild through the camp as a result of the poor quality of food and the harsh conditions of the camp. However, the harsh conditions the Union prisoners faced from the guards, disease, and lack of food were not the only problems. Among the horrible conditions there was also a group of Union soldiers in the camp that terrorized the other captives by stealing their goods and murdering prison mates in order to get what they wanted. This group of soldiers is commonly known as the Andersonville Raiders.
Fort Sumter, also known as Andersonville prison, was established in February 1864 in the small town of Andersonville, Georgia
. There was a breakdown in the prisoner of war
exchange in 1863, which resulted in a surplus of prisoners of war. As a result of this, there was overcrowding in southern prisoner-of-war camp
s across the north part of the south, particularly in the Richmond camps. In order to deal with this, the Confederate government had to establish a large prison somewhere in the South that could handle a huge population of inmates (Futch, pp 1–6).
They eventually chose the strategic location of Andersonville, Georgia because of its small location and the close proximity of fresh water and railroads (Futch, pp 1–6). The camp was about 16 acres (64,749.8 m²) and was later expanded to 26 acres (105,218.4 m²). It was surrounded by a 15-foot (4.6 m) high stockade
that wrapped around the entire camp. Every 30 yards there were large guard towers that were known as pigeon roosts (Davis, p 1-12).
The worst and most feared part of the camp was the dead line. The dead line was a much smaller fence that was about 15 feet (4.6 m) from the stockade. If a person crossed over this fence, one of the guards would shoot them (Davis, p 1-12). The camp was not built for quality but rather built for the prevention of escape. There were no wooden barracks built, and therefore prisoners had to live in self built tents (Davis p 1-17). At its height, the camp was home to over 30,000 Union inmates in August 1864 (Davis, p 24).
This was one of the most common ways they would steal from a person. Another technique would be to send out teams of spies that would track down prisoners that they suspected of having some sort of valuable that could be traded to the guards. When they knew for sure this person had something they could steal, they would then wait for him to sleep and raid his tent, and if he were to wake they would threaten him with death if he tried to resist (Futch, p 65).
The raiders were well organized and had many members that carried out a number of deeds for them. They were centrally organized around the six most important members of the group known as the “chieftains.” The six chieftains were Charles Curtis, John Sarsfield, Patrick Delaney, Teri Sullivan (or WR Rickson according to other sources), William Collins, and A. Munn (Futch, p 64-65). According to Futch, each of the leaders had henchmen
who were organized under groups named after the leaders such as “Collins’ Raiders” and “Curtis’s Raiders”, (Futch, p 64). The raiders were well stocked and had many members, of which estimates range from 50 to even as high as 500 according to some. The best estimate is that they had at least 100 raiders plus many others that either did favors for them or would help them out in some way in exchange for something (Futch, p 68).
With the help of their widespread thievery, they were well stocked with weapons that ranged from axes to bowie knives. They were also well fed which gave them a great advantage when it came to fighting because their opponents were often suffering from malnutrition and therefore considerably weaker than the raiders they were trying to defend themselves against. Also, as result of their thievery, they were able to build a tent that was large enough to fit upwards to one hundred men and was made up of mostly stolen materials (Futch, pp 65–68).
When the raiders stole from a person, it put that person at risk of dying as an indirect or direct result of the robbery. In Warren Goss’s autobiography of his time spent at Andersonville he describes the indirect effect as the raiders “Stealing blankets from boys unaccustomed to hardships was downright murder,” because the person who got their blanket stolen was then exposed to the “chill dews of evening and the frequent rains… and was sure to sicken and die,” (Goss, p 150). The direct cause was when a person resisted being robbed and was murdered in the process. One example of this is “one poor fellow came to an untimely death at their hands… because he showed resistance to their inhuman attempts,” (Kellogg, pp 91–92).
It was not uncommon for a newcomer to the prison to be awoken in the middle of the night with a knife to their throat and have someone threaten to cut their throat if they moved. Some however were able to defend themselves from these attacks and escape. John McElroy describes one such event in which a young man was attacked by eleven raiders and he managed to escape because he was able to hit one of them hard enough in the head with a spade that it knocked the person down and the others retreated as a result of this (McElroy, p 75). It was common for the raiders to retreat as soon as they realized a form of significant resistance was at hand.
The raiders were arguably one of the worst aspects of Andersonville besides the naturally occurring diseases that the prisoners were facing. Unlike the diseases however, the other prisoners had the means to fight against the raiders. The biggest problem with resisting the brutality of the raiders was that they needed the motivation to fight against them and with the horrible conditions they were facing it was difficult to motivate a group of people who were already suffering from countless disease and starvation.
However with the already tough situation of being constantly threatened by guards and the consistent run-ins with death from the various other threats coming from the camp, the inmates decided they couldn not take it anymore. By mid June, the fed up prisoners worked together and brought their complaints to Confederate authorities at which point they formed an inner prison police force to defend against and capture the raiders.
or squadron
and would set up a system in which if one of them were to be attacked by the raiders, they would scream out a code word
and the others would then come to the defense of the person being attacked and scare away the attackers. One example of this is that members of the Plymouth squad would scream out “Plymouth” when being attacked and the other members of the Plymouth would come to their rescue (Goss, pp 150–151).
McElroy also describes a similar situation in which people would scream “Raiders!” and the people around them would attack the robbers (McElroy, p 75). To defeat the raiders, the prisoners had to become more organized and have some sort of backing from the Confederates.
On June 29, 1864, a prisoner named Dowd was beaten severely by two raiders and had some of his valuables stolen which included a watch and money (Futch, pp 68–70). After Dowd was beaten and robbed, he marched to the front gate to confront the Confederate guards and demand justice. His complaints caught the interest of the head of the prison camp, Captain Henry Wirz
. When Wirz heard Dowd’s story, he quickly announced the he would cut off all rations until the raiders were turned in (Futch, p 69).
As a result of this there was a police force that was quickly organized and was commonly known as the “Regulators.” The Regulators were not new to the camp but had largely grown in power after Dowd’s case was brought to Captain Wirz. According to McElroy, there was a small band of soldiers who were calling themselves the Regulators and were going around and beating up the raiders who were attacking the other prisoners. After the permission to use a police force was given the inmates, the Regulators started making arrests and holding the people they arrested until they were given a fair trial (McElroy, pp 78–79).
According to the diary of John Ransom, Captain Wirz gave the permission to the police force to set up a court and put the offenders on trial. He also gave them full permission to punish the offenders as they deemed necessary, whether it be something as extreme as death by hanging or something smaller like lashings or humiliation (Ransom, p 105-107).
, where they put up considerable resistance, but were overthrown by the regulators. Ransom describes the first night of arrests as successful because “thirty or forty of the worst characters in camp had been taken outside,” (Ransom, pp 105–106).
Ransom then goes on to explain that it was very difficult to protect the raiders they captured from being lynched rather than being given a fair trial as promised. Estimates of how many raiders were arrested vary from source to source but the number is likely somewhere between 75 and 150 (estimate of 75 comes from Ransom; 150 from McElroy).
After the arrest of the raiders, as promised by Captain Wirz, they were put on trial for their crimes committed against the other prisoners. The court was set up much like a typical court would be and included a judge and jury of their peers (Ransom, p 108). Of those who were convicted by the court, many were given lighter sentences such as “setting in the stocks, strung up by the thumbs, thumb screws, head hanging, etc,” (Ransom, p 108).
Another one of the lesser punishments was the running of the gauntlet: a large number of inmates were given clubs, and they formed a gauntlet that some of the convicted raiders were forced to run through (McElroy, pp 85–86). In some cases, the raiders running the gauntlet were able to escape with just a few blows to the head, but a few were beaten so badly that they died as a result of their injuries. Six of the raiders, who were considered the leaders, were given the most severe punishment—death by hanging
.
The six men that were sentenced to be hanged were John Sarsfield, William Collins, Charles Curtis, Patrick Delaney, A. Munn, and WR Rickson (AKA
Teri Sullivan) (Ransom, pp 112– 113). The executions took place on July 11, and were held on a set of gallows
which was built that day (Ransom, p 112). On the way to the gallows, Charles Curtis escaped from his ropes and ran away, but was caught by the police and brought back to the gallows. Each man was given time to say some last words before he was hanged: Munn expressed great remorse
for his acts, and hoped that God would show him mercy; Collins pleaded for mercy from the crowd and said he was innocent; Sarsfield gave a long speech in which he, too, showed some signs of regret. Delaney and Curtis, however, showed no contrition; Delaney went so far as to say that he would “rather be hanged than live here” in Andersonville (Ransom, pp 112–115). The six men were then hanged, thus ending the reign of the raiders. They are buried separately from the rest of the Andersonville dead.
American Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
. Led by their chieftains Charles Curtis, John Sarsfield, Patrick Delaney, Teri Sullivan (or WR Rickson according to other sources), William Collins, and A. Munn, these soldiers terrorized their fellow prisoners, robbing
Robbery
Robbery is the crime of taking or attempting to take something of value by force or threat of force or by putting the victim in fear. At common law, robbery is defined as taking the property of another, with the intent to permanently deprive the person of that property, by means of force or fear....
and sometimes even murder
Murder
Murder is the unlawful killing, with malice aforethought, of another human being, and generally this state of mind distinguishes murder from other forms of unlawful homicide...
ing them.
An internal police force of other soldiers, called the "regulators," eventually formed to counter the raiders and brought them to trial. On July 11, 1864, six of the leading raiders were hanged
Hanging
Hanging is the lethal suspension of a person by a ligature. The Oxford English Dictionary states that hanging in this sense is "specifically to put to death by suspension by the neck", though it formerly also referred to crucifixion and death by impalement in which the body would remain...
, ending their control of the prison.
Prison conditions
Although formally known as Camp Sumter, prisoner-termed Andersonville was among the worst prison camps in the Civil War. It was particularly atrocious because of the harsh conditions of the camp. The prisoners suffered from a large amount of burdens and illnesses caused by the overcrowding. Guards have been documented as often being sadistic in nature and kill without mercy, regardless of whether or not the prisoners were breaking camp rules or crossing over the dead line. Starvation was a common cause of death throughout the camp, and many men would fall victim of it.When the captives had the chance to eat, they would suffer from diseases caused by contaminated food and water. Dysentery
Dysentery
Dysentery is an inflammatory disorder of the intestine, especially of the colon, that results in severe diarrhea containing mucus and/or blood in the faeces with fever and abdominal pain. If left untreated, dysentery can be fatal.There are differences between dysentery and normal bloody diarrhoea...
, scurvy
Scurvy
Scurvy is a disease resulting from a deficiency of vitamin C, which is required for the synthesis of collagen in humans. The chemical name for vitamin C, ascorbic acid, is derived from the Latin name of scurvy, scorbutus, which also provides the adjective scorbutic...
, and gangrene
Gangrene
Gangrene is a serious and potentially life-threatening condition that arises when a considerable mass of body tissue dies . This may occur after an injury or infection, or in people suffering from any chronic health problem affecting blood circulation. The primary cause of gangrene is reduced blood...
ran wild through the camp as a result of the poor quality of food and the harsh conditions of the camp. However, the harsh conditions the Union prisoners faced from the guards, disease, and lack of food were not the only problems. Among the horrible conditions there was also a group of Union soldiers in the camp that terrorized the other captives by stealing their goods and murdering prison mates in order to get what they wanted. This group of soldiers is commonly known as the Andersonville Raiders.
Fort Sumter, also known as Andersonville prison, was established in February 1864 in the small town of Andersonville, Georgia
Andersonville, Georgia
Andersonville is a city in Sumter County, Georgia, United States. The population was 331 at the 2000 census . It is located in the southwest part of the state, about southwest of Macon, Georgia on the Central of Georgia railroad...
. There was a breakdown in the prisoner of war
Prisoner of war
A prisoner of war or enemy prisoner of war is a person, whether civilian or combatant, who is held in custody by an enemy power during or immediately after an armed conflict...
exchange in 1863, which resulted in a surplus of prisoners of war. As a result of this, there was overcrowding in southern prisoner-of-war camp
Prisoner-of-war camp
A prisoner-of-war camp is a site for the containment of combatants captured by their enemy in time of war, and is similar to an internment camp which is used for civilian populations. A prisoner of war is generally a soldier, sailor, or airman who is imprisoned by an enemy power during or...
s across the north part of the south, particularly in the Richmond camps. In order to deal with this, the Confederate government had to establish a large prison somewhere in the South that could handle a huge population of inmates (Futch, pp 1–6).
They eventually chose the strategic location of Andersonville, Georgia because of its small location and the close proximity of fresh water and railroads (Futch, pp 1–6). The camp was about 16 acres (64,749.8 m²) and was later expanded to 26 acres (105,218.4 m²). It was surrounded by a 15-foot (4.6 m) high stockade
Stockade
A stockade is an enclosure of palisades and tall walls made of logs placed side by side vertically with the tops sharpened to provide security.-Stockade as a security fence:...
that wrapped around the entire camp. Every 30 yards there were large guard towers that were known as pigeon roosts (Davis, p 1-12).
The worst and most feared part of the camp was the dead line. The dead line was a much smaller fence that was about 15 feet (4.6 m) from the stockade. If a person crossed over this fence, one of the guards would shoot them (Davis, p 1-12). The camp was not built for quality but rather built for the prevention of escape. There were no wooden barracks built, and therefore prisoners had to live in self built tents (Davis p 1-17). At its height, the camp was home to over 30,000 Union inmates in August 1864 (Davis, p 24).
Organization and methods
Among the many issues the soldiers were facing, they had to deal with a group of rogue soldiers who terrorized the camp and were more commonly known throughout the camp as “the raiders.” The raiders were known throughout the camp for their harsh tactics and undoubted lack of mercy for their victims. According to John McElroy, the raiders used various methods to get what they wanted that ranged from “sneak thievery to highway robbery,” (McElroy, p 74). One of their main tactics in stealing goods and food was to look out for “promising subjects” in the crowds of new prisoners and trick them by pretending to help them find a good sleeping place and then beat them and steal their goods (McElroy, pp 73–74).This was one of the most common ways they would steal from a person. Another technique would be to send out teams of spies that would track down prisoners that they suspected of having some sort of valuable that could be traded to the guards. When they knew for sure this person had something they could steal, they would then wait for him to sleep and raid his tent, and if he were to wake they would threaten him with death if he tried to resist (Futch, p 65).
The raiders were well organized and had many members that carried out a number of deeds for them. They were centrally organized around the six most important members of the group known as the “chieftains.” The six chieftains were Charles Curtis, John Sarsfield, Patrick Delaney, Teri Sullivan (or WR Rickson according to other sources), William Collins, and A. Munn (Futch, p 64-65). According to Futch, each of the leaders had henchmen
Henchman
Henchman referred originally to one who attended on a horse for his employer, that is, a horse groom. Hence, like constable and marshal, also originally stable staff, henchman became the title of a subordinate official in a royal court or noble household...
who were organized under groups named after the leaders such as “Collins’ Raiders” and “Curtis’s Raiders”, (Futch, p 64). The raiders were well stocked and had many members, of which estimates range from 50 to even as high as 500 according to some. The best estimate is that they had at least 100 raiders plus many others that either did favors for them or would help them out in some way in exchange for something (Futch, p 68).
With the help of their widespread thievery, they were well stocked with weapons that ranged from axes to bowie knives. They were also well fed which gave them a great advantage when it came to fighting because their opponents were often suffering from malnutrition and therefore considerably weaker than the raiders they were trying to defend themselves against. Also, as result of their thievery, they were able to build a tent that was large enough to fit upwards to one hundred men and was made up of mostly stolen materials (Futch, pp 65–68).
When the raiders stole from a person, it put that person at risk of dying as an indirect or direct result of the robbery. In Warren Goss’s autobiography of his time spent at Andersonville he describes the indirect effect as the raiders “Stealing blankets from boys unaccustomed to hardships was downright murder,” because the person who got their blanket stolen was then exposed to the “chill dews of evening and the frequent rains… and was sure to sicken and die,” (Goss, p 150). The direct cause was when a person resisted being robbed and was murdered in the process. One example of this is “one poor fellow came to an untimely death at their hands… because he showed resistance to their inhuman attempts,” (Kellogg, pp 91–92).
It was not uncommon for a newcomer to the prison to be awoken in the middle of the night with a knife to their throat and have someone threaten to cut their throat if they moved. Some however were able to defend themselves from these attacks and escape. John McElroy describes one such event in which a young man was attacked by eleven raiders and he managed to escape because he was able to hit one of them hard enough in the head with a spade that it knocked the person down and the others retreated as a result of this (McElroy, p 75). It was common for the raiders to retreat as soon as they realized a form of significant resistance was at hand.
The raiders were arguably one of the worst aspects of Andersonville besides the naturally occurring diseases that the prisoners were facing. Unlike the diseases however, the other prisoners had the means to fight against the raiders. The biggest problem with resisting the brutality of the raiders was that they needed the motivation to fight against them and with the horrible conditions they were facing it was difficult to motivate a group of people who were already suffering from countless disease and starvation.
However with the already tough situation of being constantly threatened by guards and the consistent run-ins with death from the various other threats coming from the camp, the inmates decided they couldn not take it anymore. By mid June, the fed up prisoners worked together and brought their complaints to Confederate authorities at which point they formed an inner prison police force to defend against and capture the raiders.
Defense against the raiders
At first, small groups of prisoners would form together in defense against the raiders. These groups tended to be members of the same platoonPlatoon
A platoon is a military unit typically composed of two to four sections or squads and containing 16 to 50 soldiers. Platoons are organized into a company, which typically consists of three, four or five platoons. A platoon is typically the smallest military unit led by a commissioned officer—the...
or squadron
Squadron
Squadron has different meanings:*Squadron , a cavalry or other unit that consists of a number of troops.*Squadron , a unit of aircraft that consists of three or four "flights", with a total of 12 to 24 aircraft, depending on aircraft type and air force.*Squadron , a unit of 3-4 major naval vessels...
and would set up a system in which if one of them were to be attacked by the raiders, they would scream out a code word
Code word
In communication, a code word is an element of a standardized code or protocol. Each code word is assembled in accordance with the specific rules of the code and assigned a unique meaning...
and the others would then come to the defense of the person being attacked and scare away the attackers. One example of this is that members of the Plymouth squad would scream out “Plymouth” when being attacked and the other members of the Plymouth would come to their rescue (Goss, pp 150–151).
McElroy also describes a similar situation in which people would scream “Raiders!” and the people around them would attack the robbers (McElroy, p 75). To defeat the raiders, the prisoners had to become more organized and have some sort of backing from the Confederates.
On June 29, 1864, a prisoner named Dowd was beaten severely by two raiders and had some of his valuables stolen which included a watch and money (Futch, pp 68–70). After Dowd was beaten and robbed, he marched to the front gate to confront the Confederate guards and demand justice. His complaints caught the interest of the head of the prison camp, Captain Henry Wirz
Henry Wirz
Heinrich Hartmann Wirz better known as Henry Wirz was a Confederate officer in the American Civil War...
. When Wirz heard Dowd’s story, he quickly announced the he would cut off all rations until the raiders were turned in (Futch, p 69).
As a result of this there was a police force that was quickly organized and was commonly known as the “Regulators.” The Regulators were not new to the camp but had largely grown in power after Dowd’s case was brought to Captain Wirz. According to McElroy, there was a small band of soldiers who were calling themselves the Regulators and were going around and beating up the raiders who were attacking the other prisoners. After the permission to use a police force was given the inmates, the Regulators started making arrests and holding the people they arrested until they were given a fair trial (McElroy, pp 78–79).
According to the diary of John Ransom, Captain Wirz gave the permission to the police force to set up a court and put the offenders on trial. He also gave them full permission to punish the offenders as they deemed necessary, whether it be something as extreme as death by hanging or something smaller like lashings or humiliation (Ransom, p 105-107).
Arrest and punishment
The arrests took place mostly from June 29 of that year, up until July 10, when the main offenders were tried and hanged (Ransom, p 105). The regulators seemed to be able round up most of the raiders by attacking them at their headquartersHeadquarters
Headquarters denotes the location where most, if not all, of the important functions of an organization are coordinated. In the United States, the corporate headquarters represents the entity at the center or the top of a corporation taking full responsibility managing all business activities...
, where they put up considerable resistance, but were overthrown by the regulators. Ransom describes the first night of arrests as successful because “thirty or forty of the worst characters in camp had been taken outside,” (Ransom, pp 105–106).
Ransom then goes on to explain that it was very difficult to protect the raiders they captured from being lynched rather than being given a fair trial as promised. Estimates of how many raiders were arrested vary from source to source but the number is likely somewhere between 75 and 150 (estimate of 75 comes from Ransom; 150 from McElroy).
After the arrest of the raiders, as promised by Captain Wirz, they were put on trial for their crimes committed against the other prisoners. The court was set up much like a typical court would be and included a judge and jury of their peers (Ransom, p 108). Of those who were convicted by the court, many were given lighter sentences such as “setting in the stocks, strung up by the thumbs, thumb screws, head hanging, etc,” (Ransom, p 108).
Another one of the lesser punishments was the running of the gauntlet: a large number of inmates were given clubs, and they formed a gauntlet that some of the convicted raiders were forced to run through (McElroy, pp 85–86). In some cases, the raiders running the gauntlet were able to escape with just a few blows to the head, but a few were beaten so badly that they died as a result of their injuries. Six of the raiders, who were considered the leaders, were given the most severe punishment—death by hanging
Hanging
Hanging is the lethal suspension of a person by a ligature. The Oxford English Dictionary states that hanging in this sense is "specifically to put to death by suspension by the neck", though it formerly also referred to crucifixion and death by impalement in which the body would remain...
.
The six men that were sentenced to be hanged were John Sarsfield, William Collins, Charles Curtis, Patrick Delaney, A. Munn, and WR Rickson (AKA
Pseudonym
A pseudonym is a name that a person assumes for a particular purpose and that differs from his or her original orthonym...
Teri Sullivan) (Ransom, pp 112– 113). The executions took place on July 11, and were held on a set of gallows
Gallows
A gallows is a frame, typically wooden, used for execution by hanging, or by means to torture before execution, as was used when being hanged, drawn and quartered...
which was built that day (Ransom, p 112). On the way to the gallows, Charles Curtis escaped from his ropes and ran away, but was caught by the police and brought back to the gallows. Each man was given time to say some last words before he was hanged: Munn expressed great remorse
Remorse
Remorse is an emotional expression of personal regret felt by a person after he or she has committed an act which they deem to be shameful, hurtful, or violent. Remorse is closely allied to guilt and self-directed resentment...
for his acts, and hoped that God would show him mercy; Collins pleaded for mercy from the crowd and said he was innocent; Sarsfield gave a long speech in which he, too, showed some signs of regret. Delaney and Curtis, however, showed no contrition; Delaney went so far as to say that he would “rather be hanged than live here” in Andersonville (Ransom, pp 112–115). The six men were then hanged, thus ending the reign of the raiders. They are buried separately from the rest of the Andersonville dead.